Shadow's Healer

Blood soaked Hybern’s stone even the sea winds could not wash it away.Three months after the war,I still walked halls built from screams.Cassian handled the camps above ground.I took the prisons beneath the island.Perhaps because I understood cages too well.Chains rattled below as I descended another staircase,my shadows twisting around me.Restless all day.Dragging me forward.I ignored the ache in my chest.Lucien stood beside her weeks ago in Velaris while she smiled at him,and the bond between them settled like fate correcting itself.I buried myself in Hybern’s ruins where work left no room for wanting.This prison level should have been empty.But my shadows slipped beneath a rusted iron door and surged back frantic.Calling.My hand tightened on Truth-Teller as I shoved the door open.Cold darkness breathed against my face.The chamber was ancient.Wards covered every inch of stone.Containment.A female crouched in the corner beneath tangled dark hair.Too thin.Too still.Bare feet stained with blood.Her ruined clothes hung from her frame.My breath caught.An invisible thread snapped tight inside my chest.Mate.My shadows exploded toward her with relief and hunger so fierce my scars burned.Her head jerked up.Golden-brown eyes met mine—wild,mad,filled with centuries of pain.She inhaled sharply like some broken part of her recognized me.Then she saw my shadows.Fear twisted into rage.She lunged with impossible speed,a rusted blade flashing.I twisted aside as it scraped my leathers.“Don’t bring them near me!” she snarled,my shadows recoiling.“Don’t let them touch me!”The bond pulsed again.Unmistakable.She felt it.Horror flooded her face as she backed away from me.“No,”she whispered.“I know what you are.”Mate.My mate.And she looked at me like I had come to finish what Hybern started!